


under the umbrella

by rosaecae



Series: east coast kid [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 15:50:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11165091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosaecae/pseuds/rosaecae
Summary: A brief, simplified explanation as to how in the fuck Iggy and Chris got together.





	under the umbrella

**Author's Note:**

> this is the most niche thing i have ever and probably will ever write but i got like 5 people on tumblr who wanted it so. it was fun to write whatever

It’s around noon, judging by how fucking hot it is even though it’s fucking September, and Iggy’s on the beach for the first time since he got out. Which seems stupid, since it’s right the fuck there, but he’s never had much of an interest in getting sand up his ass and burning until he can’t move without tearing up a little bit.

It’s the first weekend that the tourists are mostly gone, though, and Chris had informed him that morning that he was going to go smoke the last of Iggy’s weed at the bay, with or without him. 

He had figured, if he’s stoned, he won’t think about the sand up his ass.

One thing in particular that Iggy likes about Chris is that he really knows his shit when it comes to Azurra. The guy hadn’t set foot outside of Jersey before they went to Boston, so he knows where it is that the tourists never go. With Chris, Iggy’s never had to say something along the lines of: “Fuck no, I’m not going with you to the Outlet, if I have to buy another hotdog from Kevin from my sophomore class I think we’re both gonna kill ourselves.” 

Sticking to the local way of life keeps him sane. That’s why he got a job in construction, and not pushing souvenirs on fanny-pack wearing, sweating mothers of five. 

He likes like-minded people. Sue him. 

Though, Chris isn’t exactly like-minded. Sure, Chris knows Azurra better than anybody Iggy’s ever met, but he’s also way smarter and way more interesting than anybody he’s ever met. Iggy thinks he could probably listen to him talk for hours and not get bored; in fact, that’s what he does, most days. Something about them just seems to flow; Chris is talkative, and Iggy likes to be talked to. He’s different than anyone else Iggy’s ever spent time with. Every time they hang out (which has been every day, lately), Iggy comes home feeling like he’s learned something new.

It’s very surreal how quickly they became friends, after Boston. It only took a short time before Chris cut back heavily on the flirting, when it seemed to be getting him nowhere. Iggy will never admit he misses it, but it was, at the very least, good to boost his ego. Now, Chris talks about the other subjects of his fleeting, unrequited crushes, and Iggy is left in what would be called the friendzone if he were actively looking to fuck the other party. Which he's not.

Chris is talking about his family’s latest drama, right now. Iggy’s half-baked, but from what he can tell, Chris’s 20-something sister is dating a guy that  _ Chris  _ fucked on the down-low in high school, who he has recently discovered to be fucking none other than--

“Our  _ mother _ ,” Chris emphasizes. “He’s fucking our  _ mother. _ Like, our fifty-seven-year-old mother. The woman--” he pauses to take a hit, passing the joint to Iggy. “--the woman carried me in utero for nine months and then pushed me out and clothed me and fed me and drove me to school and now here we are, Iggy. I’ve come to the point in my life where I’ve had the same dick inside of me as my mother and my sister.” 

Iggy keeps the joint between his lips as he takes a minute to process that. “Wait,” he drawls. “So he’s  _ not  _ gay?”

Chris’ eyebrows draw together. “Well, no. I don’t know how he identifies. He’s probably bisexual, or pansexual, or something like that.”

Iggy squints. “ _ Pan _ sexual?”

“When you’re open to anybody, no matter their gender identity,” Chris explains, reaching for the joint.

“You use a lot of words that I don’t fuckin’ understand, man,” Iggy sighs. “Why do we need all those words for shit?”

“Why do we need words for anything, Ig?” Chris replies. “People just like some short way to sum stuff up. Blame the Phoenicians.”

“Who?”

Chris’s historical references do not mix well with the heaviness of Iggy’s head. 

“They invented written language. That’s not the point, though. The point is, sexuality is a spectrum, and though I wish we could completely cut out ascribing language to it, society hasn’t developed that much yet.” Chris accepts the joint again, as Iggy waits for him to find the end of his thought. “No, you know what? That wasn’t the point, either. The point is my mom is getting railed by my ex boyfriend.”

Iggy laughs at that, earning himself a punch to the arm.

“It’s not funny, Iggy! It’s a crisis. It’s a fucking crisis.”

“If he marries your mom,” Iggy says, still laughing between breaths, “then you and your sister will both have fucked your step dad.”

Chris tries his best to maintain a stern, unamused demeanor, but he cracks after a few seconds, giggling at it all. 

“ _ God, _ ” he groans out, falling back to lay on their blanket and offering the joint to Iggy. “I just don’t know when my mom started getting more dick than I do.”

Iggy looks down at the other guy, still peachy from the summer, auburn hair curling a bit from the salty air, caramel eyes warm and deep, and he wonders why he doesn’t have all the gays on the east coast flocking to get with him.

Something else is bothering him, too. Something about whatever Chris was saying about sexuality, and spectrums, and identity. 

Because Iggy loves girls. He fucking loves girls. They’re beautiful, just absolutely exquisite creatures, and he doesn’t think he’s ever met a girl that he didn’t like. He’s absolutely sure that he loves girls.

And he’d avoided the dude-fucking in prison; his sentence wasn’t that long, and the Milkovich name had carried him though. He just had zero interest in nailing some guy to get off. 

Now, though, and he hasn’t let himself think it until this exact moment, but being around Chris produces the same warm, fluttering feeling that being around a really pretty, girlfriend-material  _ girl _ produces. And when Chris was still hooked on hitting on him, it would make him feel the same nervous confidence that any female flirting has produced in the past. 

He loves girls, though. He’s sure of that.

“So, like, that guy fucked you, and then fucked your sister, and then your mom, and he’s not gay, but he’s not...straight,” Iggy thinks aloud. 

“I’d guess that’s right, yeah,” Chris answers, throwing a hand over his eyes to block the sun.

“But, Mick was with a shit ton of girls before he met Ian, and now he’s gay,” Iggy puzzles.

“He was always gay,” Chris mumbles. “He just didn’t interpret his romantic feelings towards boys as being romantic feelings because he grew up in a heteronormative community. He was just too strongly attracted to Ian to ignore it anymore, I guess.”

“But that other guy,” Iggy continues, pausing to take a hit. “That’s bangin’ your mom. He’s  _ not  _ gay.”

“Well, see,” Chris counters, “the way you’re saying that would imply he’s straight. Which he’s not. And besides, ‘gay’ is an umbrella term. It can be used for anyone that likes the same gender.”

“So there’s a difference between being gay and  _ gay _ ?” Iggy asks. “Like, that guy is gay because he’s under the...umbrella. But Mick is  _ gay  _ because he only likes dudes.”

“Yeah, that seems right,” Chris agrees, shrugging and motioning for the joint. “But then there’s the people that prefer ‘queer’ instead of gay. And the people who don’t want a label at all.”

“So you can like girls and guys...at the same time,” Iggy speculates, squinting out at the ocean.

Chris glances at him curiously, and then sits up with a new attention. “The hell is this about, Iggy?”

Iggy looks over in return, and feels the stupid butterflies from Chris’s stupid smile and stupid eyes and stupid freckles. 

Maybe it’s the weed.

He likes girls.

“Can I like...try somethin’?” Iggy asks haltingly.

Chris shrugs, but something about his eyes says he has an idea about what is about to happen.

Iggy looks at him for a second longer, taking a breath, swallowing down the swelling fear. Then he reaches over, willing his hand to stop shaking as he hooks his index finger under Chris’s chin. He leans forward, and Chris doesn’t move an inch, watching him analytically, and it feels like a fucking year, but once their lips are a hair apart, the heaviness in his temples pulls him the rest of the way there as he places an experimental kiss on Chris’s lips.

And it doesn’t feel stagnant, or pointless, like he was hoping it would. 

It doesn’t feel like he’s kissing a girl, either. Chris smells like aftershave and ash instead of perfume and mint. His skin is rougher. 

When Iggy pulls back, though, and Chris raises an eyebrow at him in question, he finds himself only hesitating for a moment before trying again.

**Author's Note:**

> .....writing for iggy was hard as hell tbh. tell me if you want...more?  
>  also if ur wondering, i, the writer, believe iggy is pansexual in this universe.  
> if u want more context as to why this exists my tumblr is gll-vch.tumblr.com :^)


End file.
